With voting open for this year’s Oscars, we’re taking a closer look at some of the craftspeople nominated for the year’s best films—from the people who re-created the golden age of Hollywood for the Coen Brothers to the makeup artist who redefined a pop-culture icon. Check VanityFair.com every day this week for another close-up look at 2017’s Oscar nominees.

Damien Chazelle’s movie musical La La Land is not only an homage to Los Angeles, but a Valentine to throwback films like The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, West Side Story, Sweet Charity, The Young Girls of Rochefort, and Singin’ in the Rain. So when designing costumes for the film’s stars Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling, Mary Zophres knew that it made perfect sense to pay tribute to their movie-star ancestors.

The obvious starting point for Stone’s character, Mia, was Ingrid Bergman, a poster of whom hangs on the character’s bedroom wall. The costume designer’s Internet searches led her to a rarely seen camera test captured during Bergman’s early days in Hollywood—which Zophres used as inspiration for one of Mia’s own early actress looks.

“There was a camera test Ingrid Bergman did when she first came to this country,” explained Zophries, who is nominated for a costume-design Oscar. “There was resistance about casting her because of her accent, and her name was hard to say. Of course, Emma looked at [the video] and looked at the acting. I looked at it and look at what she’s wearing—a pink halter dress that was really simple but just beautiful.”

“I even freeze-framed it and put it on my character [inspiration] board for Mia,” Zophries continued. “Ultimately, I found a pink dress that we rented from Los Angeles rental house Palace Costumes, inspired by that Ingrid Bergman screen test. We were able to work it into the film during a dating montage.”

Although the vibrant colors of Hollywood’s Technicolor days heavily inspired Chazelle’s La La Land palette, there was only one scene in his script that specified a costume color.

“The dress Emma wears to the planetarium was in the script as green,” said Zophries. “When Damien and I spoke about it in person, we both thought the reference for her costume in the scene should be the green dress that Judy Garland wears in A Star Is Born—it’s just a beautiful jade emerald color.”

The film had a limited budget, so Zophries had to choose wisely when deciding which costumes to design herself.

“We didn’t have a ton of money,” said Zophries. “But we knew that in places where Emma would have to dance, I wanted to and needed to make those dresses. . . . That’s where we spent our money.” The most expensive dress Zophries made for Stone was the white design that the actress wears while dancing with Gosling against a starry-night background. The second she heard the actors would dancing in that scene, Zophries said she “automatically thought of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers”—specifically, a dance number in 1936’s Swing Time. Stone’s costume is inspired by the dress Rogers wore in that—but cut differently, because “Ginger and Emma have such different bodies, and also these are different time periods. Ginger’s had spaghetti straps and was more formal.”

“Emma’s white dress had more volume and a more complicated pattern than her other costumes,” explained Zophries. “It had a silk chiffon top and a very lightweight silk charmeuse underneath, so it was like two layers, all hand sewn. It’s beautifully done. I’ve seen the movie seven or eight times, and that white dress slays me every time. . . . It’s funny, because the movie is so known for its color. But the white dress . . . I get teary-eyed when it is on camera, because it’s everything I wanted it to be. It just rises up in the air as you spin in it.”

Stone unwittingly inspired another costume—the marigold dress that Mia wears to a pool party and a Griffith Park dance sequence.

“We knew we were doing this dance number in twilight, in magic hour,” said Zophries. “So we knew we wanted it to pop against the setting sun. . . . I had actually seen Emma photographed in that color on the Cannes red carpet a few years back. She was wearing Versace, and I remember thinking, Oh my God, she looks gorgeous in that color. I showed that color to Damien and said, ‘This is the color inspiration.’ I knew that square neckline would look good on Emma because she looks good with something that literally frames her face. I gave it that cap sleeve so she could do the dance moves in it.”

Of La La Land’s two main characters, Mia evolves most personally and professionally—a point Zophries was careful to telegraph.

“When she starts out in the film, she is a young woman without a lot of money—but she has a very positive disposition, definitely a ‘glass half full’ kind of girl. Color is joyous, so I never wanted her to be in black. Even that dressy dress that she wears at the end is navy blue. We intensified the color up through the planetarium—it’s a happy time for both of them that peaks there. Once Mia and Seb are dating and he joins [John Legend’s band], and they stop seeing each other as much, the colors start to disappear. It becomes more monochromatic, with Mia literally in black and white at her one-woman show. Ryan also wears more and more black.”

“When we fast-forward five years, I used more designer clothing because that’s when she would have more money as an actress,” explained Zophries. “So she wears that black-and-white dress to the studio, the navy-blue dress with her husband. And then we see it again with Ryan in the fantasy version, the ‘what if’ version.”

“I beg you to go back and watch Lola, and look at the lead—Marc Michel—and tell me that he does not have the sexiest understated look,” said Zophries. “If you pluck a photo of him out, it looks like somebody today—the way he carried himself. Also, because of Sebastian’s love for jazz, his love for the past, I told Damien I don’t think he wears jeans, a T-shirt, or sneakers. He’s a formal guy, with a classic silhouette that is timeless.”

“He gets dressed up for a date,” continued Zophres. “I love that he has a shirt, a tie, and a blazer on when he meets Emma at the movie theater. And she’s wearing a dress. To me, that’s the most romantic moment, from a clothing point of view, in the movie, because they both dressed up for that date. People should do that more often, as far as I’m concerned.”

If viewers take one thing from her La La Land costume design, Zophres laughs that she hopes they will encourage people to ditch their athleisure wear.

“Up until the 80s, people didn’t leave their house in workout clothes,” said Zophres. “I think we’re going to be known as the yoga-pant generation, because you go everywhere and people are just walking around in their workout clothes. I wish this movie would inspire dressing up more.”